Economic freedom message of talk

Thursday

May 16, 2013 at 1:20 PM

Cynthia Grau

The Americans for Prosperity Foundation brought its message to Livingston County Wednesday night at the Pontiac Elks Lodge at the invitation of the Livingston County Tea Party.Kent Strang, grassroots and programs director for the Illinois and Missouri chapter of the AFP, gave a presentation to a group of interested audience members concerning what kind of action citizens can make to gain economic freedom.“We’re teaching people how, with more economic freedom, you live a happier, healthier and longer life and it’s purely just to educate folks,” Strang explained. “We advocate for particular issues that deal with free market. Particular pieces of legislation, we’ll support or oppose.”Presentations have been made throughout the state, which boasts more than 60,000 AFP members. “As an organization, we want to work with supporters and economic activists of economic freedom throughout the state to advance free market principles and we want to advance those principles to city councils, in Springfield and ultimately, in Washington, D.C., because,” Strang says, “it all comes back to the fact we want individuals, taxpayers and families to have more of their hard earned money, because they do work hard. We want people to be able to keep what they earn.”Strang explained that the taxpayers feel burdened with debt, which creates an environment where people end up leaving the state or looking for other opportunities.“We’re a firm believer that Illinois has always been the epicenter of commerce in the Midwest, with Chicago and the great businesses, great farms and great natural resources that we have here,” he said. “We think that we want to return Illinois to that status to being that economic powerhouse. It’s pretty disappointing to see that we’re in the bottom tier of almost every economic category.”He said the downfall of the state is caused by its spending, regulations and poor decisions in Springfield, but the state can turn itself around. “We hope that, even though there is a lot of negative things in the presentation in terms of what is happening in Springfield, we think the positive light is we want to be part of the solution. We don’t want to be a part of the problem,” Strang said.He said that the group wants to help people who believe in those principles and advocate for them by pointing them in the right direction to help make the state better. A big piece of advice he has is to have people get in touch with their state representatives.“We all live here. We pay the taxes and you pay the taxes and the folks here pay the taxes. We want to do better for our kids and we don’t want any lost generations,” he emphasized.Strang, who has been with AFP since January 2012, was born and raised in Illinois and currently lives in O’Fallon. He started his political journey at a young age, as part of the College Republicans and Young Republicans. He says his goal was to work in Washington, D.C. post-college.“I made it a month on Capitol Hill for Denny Rehberg, who ran for senate in Minnesota last year. The Hill wasn’t really my calling,” he admitted, saying that he instead chose to work on campaigns, heading to South Florida and back to Washington, D.C. before he and his wife, who was also born and raised in Illinois, settled back in Illinois.For more information about AFP, visit www.americansforprosperity.org/illinois.